Twin Apocs

The home system is quite. Our scouts went down the chain earlier in the day so we have bookmarks already. A jump into the neighboring C4 shows a hint of promise with 2 Apoc Navy issue ships and a couple of other ships. I locate and warp to the local tower but the ships are not there when I land. A quick check of d-scan shows them at first but they are gone seconds later.

Interesting! Are they running sites in the C3? We certainly hope so. There is a covert ops ship in system with us based on the original d-scan results which is now missing as well. Probably watching the wormhole but we are not sure.

Two covert T3 tackle ships move into the C4s and setup on the C3 wormhole just in case they head back before we are ready with the full fleet. We put a scout in the C3 and he finds a spot out of d-scan range to drop probes and then returns to the wormhole.

Sure enough, they are running sites in the C3. A little discussion follows and we decide to put both of the covert ships into the C3 and hope that they are not watching the wormhole. Since the ships are running combat sites, we can get a tackle on them in the site if we are lucky.

Both ships make it into the wormhole and we warp to the site cloaked. We land nearly 70 km from the ships and start the burn toward them. We are still 40 km out when they warp off. We are not sure why they warped. If they saw us when we jumped in and are just now reacting that would qualify as the slowest response time ever.

We wait around expecting them to come back to the site but they neither return to the wormhole nor the site we are camping. Being the impatient souls we are, the next step is to combat probe their safe. Our scout uses his d-scan to get an approximate fix and hits scan. He manages to get a 100% lock on the first pass and warps to zero. However, the pilots have now moved again.

No reason to be subtle about it now. The race is on. We scan, they warp and eventually log off before we can catch them. They have a couple of pilots in the C4 now in a Harbinger and a Rapier. We disappear into the mists and watch. It takes nearly 40 minutes but eventually the Harbinger and the Rapier align to the C3 wormhole. They burn well outside the the POS shields but anything happens but eventually both the Apoc pilots log back in and the Harbinger and Rapier warp to the C3.

At this point, we have 3 cloaky T3's in the C3 on the C4 wormhole and 2 more in the C4 plus a cloaked HIC. Once the Apoc pilots are confirmed as inbound, I have the T3's in the C4 uncloak and call the rest of the fleet in our home system to jump and warp to the C3 as well.

The Apoc's land on the wormhole and the Harbinger and Rapier land on the other side. Our fleet engages on both sides. Both Apoc's jump when they reach the wormhole and I follow leaving behind 2 of the pilots on the off-chance anyone jumps back that direction.

The first Apoc Navy Issue is pointed, the first Apoc is pointed again. The Rapier is pointed. The Harbinger is dead. The Rapier quickly realizes that this is going downhill and burns out of range and warps off. Meanwhile, the DPS is focused on the first Apoc who is going down under the combined firepower of our guns and the second Apoc gets clear of the warp disruption bubble and warps off. Oops!

While the second Apoc Navy Issue is gone, we continue DPS on the first Apoc. He has a hefty tank and we are just getting him to structure when both the Rapier and a non faction Apoc return to the fight. I point the Rapier while the FC asks the Loki to point the pod of the Harbi pilot. The Rapier does a 180 and eventually burns outside the range of my overheated 52km point. He warps off and does not return.

The first Apoc Navy Issue finally explodes and the second Apoc micro jumps and then warps as well. That is the first time I have seen that module used in combat and it would have been a lot cooler if I hadn't seen it. We had him pointed so I thought that would prevent his escape. Hmmm! I guess I need to look into the counter for that module a little more closely.

Patience paid off this evening with a nice kill. The other pilots engaged and came back even against overwhelming odds to try to save their friends. All told, it was a fun encounter. We probably should have gotten more kills, but this way both sides can feel like they got something from the fight.